Progression Guidance in English for Year 4
Grammatical Skills - Knowledge and skills: awareness, sentence construction and punctuation
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Use paragraphs as a way to organise ideas around a theme;
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be able to identify the main clause and subordinate clause, and notice their various positions within a sentence; e.g. ‘Although it was cold, Jack took his
coat.’ – can be written: ‘Jack took his coat, although it was cold.’ (The main clause moves from the end of the sentence to the beginning);
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build confidence to distinguish between statements, questions and commands;
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begin to use connectives to structure an argument: If; on the other hand;
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learn that strong, specific nouns and powerful verbs make good writing;
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become familiar with using a thesaurus to expand vocabulary; keep a journal of words;
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introduce the term pronoun during shared writing, to show how they help the writer to avoid repetition or ambiguity, e.g. Josh loved sausages. He ate
three every day. His mother gave them to him;
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recognise adverbs when reading, particularly those ending with ‘ly’; use a comma after fronted adverbials at the beginnings of sentences; begin to use in
writing;
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use a comma to mark a pause within a complex sentence;
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use two commas around extra information, e.g. Jess, the shorter of the two, asked Peter for a ladder. Explore other ways to punctuate extra information (a
parenthesis), such as with a pair of brackets or dashes;
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vary sentence order and sentence length, and examine the effect on the reader;
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identify and apply apostrophe for possession e.g. the baby’s dummy; the ladies’ hats; teach basic rules for singular/plural nouns first;
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compare this to the apostrophe for omission used by contractions e.g. won’t;
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introduce the term possessive pronoun e.g. Jack’s football, Miss Wood’s ruler;
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use the term inverted commas when referring to speech marks, and clarify their use in direct speech; identify the difference between direct and reported
speech;
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identify the subject in a sentence, e.g. Danny caught a whopping fish;
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emphasise the importance of making the subject and verb agree, both when speaking and writing, e.g. We were fishing; I did my homework; they were
blue;
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avoid using a double negative, e.g. I never did nothing; can’t nobody help?
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discuss the idea of formal and informal language
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practise noticing the difference between ‘phrase’ and ‘clause’ when sharing a text; the phrase does not contain a verb;
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develop confidence with contractions such as: you’re, should’ve, would’ve, it’s/its
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introduce the term synonym for words which are similar in meaning, and antonym for words which are opposite in meaning;
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introduce the word determiner for a word which specifies a noun as known or unknown e.g. the, a or an; my, your; this, these, those; some or every;
build dictionary skills to check the meaning of new words;
Handwriting and Presentation
Pupils should be taught to:
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use the diagonal and horizontal strokes that are needed to join letters and understand which letters, when adjacent to one another, are best left
unjoined
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increase the legibility, consistency and quality of their handwriting [for example, by ensuring that the downstrokes of letters are parallel and equidistant;
that lines of writing are spaced sufficiently so that the ascenders and descenders of letters do not touch.]
Non statutory: Pupils should be using joined handwriting throughout their independent writing. Handwriting should continue to be taught, with the
aim of increasing the fluency with which pupils are able to write down what they want to say. This, in turn, will support their composition and spelling.
Reading – Comprehension
Knowledge, skills and understanding
How comprehension can be supported by adults; routines and resources
Pupils should be taught to:
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develop positive attitudes to reading and understanding of what they read by:
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Broaden the ways in which children are introduced to texts e.g. local libraries,
bookshops and independent booksellers.
listening to and discussing a wide range of fiction, poetry, plays, non-
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Build in time for children to browse, discuss and explain their choices.
fiction and reference books or textbooks
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Engage in a forum for book talk and discuss books where discussion deepens
reading books that are structured in different ways and reading for a
thinking about texts.
range of purposes
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Introduce book clubs for different groups of children and parents.
using dictionaries to check the meaning of words that they have read
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Hold ‘cosy book nights’ or an opportunity for children and their parents to
increasing their familiarity with a wide range of books, including fairy
stories, myths and legends, and retelling some of these orally
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identifying themes and conventions in a wide range of books
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preparing poems and play scripts to read aloud and to perform, showing
understanding through intonation, tone, volume and action
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discussing words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest and
imagination
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recognising some different forms of poetry [for example, free verse,
narrative poetry]
understand what they read, in books they can read independently, by:
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return to school in the early evening to hear stories read aloud.
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dictionaries, books of word origins and thesauruses in a variety of situations.
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asking questions to improve their understanding of a text
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drawing inferences such as inferring characters’ feelings, thoughts and
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predicting what might happen from details stated and implied
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identifying main ideas drawn from more than one paragraph and
summarising these
Collect words that excite and interest. Discuss the nuances of meaning in words
that arise from reading.
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Discuss synonyms for words and phrases in context, using thesauruses and word
processing.
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Play ‘Call my Bluff’ style games, giving three definitions and deciding which one
is correct.
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Use shared/group reading as an opportunity to infer characters feelings and
motivations.
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motives from their actions, and justifying inferences with evidence
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Explore poems and play scripts through role play and drama, sometimes leading
to performance and peer evaluation.
checking that the text makes sense to them, discussing their understanding
and explaining the meaning of words in context
Ensure children are given opportunities to become confident in using
Role play characters by hot seating or conscience corridor, in order to
understand their point of view.
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Read aloud class story up to a given point, discuss, predict and write about what
might happen next.
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Model how to identify key words and phrases that can summarise a text.
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identifying how language, structure, and presentation contribute to meaning 
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retrieve and record information from non-fiction
participate in discussion about both books that are read to them and those they can
read for themselves, taking turns and listening to what others say.
Work in pairs to locate ideas that can summarise a text.
During written comprehension activities, allow adequate time for children to
fully engage with the text.
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Set up reading buddies with younger children.
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Collect and have visits by favourite authors and poets.
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Consider using tablets or e-books to motivate children to read.
Spelling
Expected
Spelling pattern, rule or tip
Word suggestions
If the last syllable is stressed and ends with one
consonant (which has one preceding vowel) the
final consonant is doubled e.g. forgetting:
however, the consonant is not doubled if the
syllable is unstressed, e.g. gardener
(Revise: beginning, forgetting)
Revision of Year 3 objectives throughout lower
KS2. Extend and develop to Year 4 coverage
below, as appropriate.
Statutory:
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Adding suffixes beginning with vowels (to
words of more than one syllable)
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The short ‘i’ phoneme spelt y in the middle
of words.
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Prefixes in-, il-, im-, ir, re- sub-, inter- and
auto
gardening, gardener, limiting, limited, limitation
myth, gym, Egypt, pyramid, mystery
in- means both ‘not’ and ‘in/into’.
Before a root starting with l, in- beomes il.
incorrect, inactive
illegal, illegible
immature, immortal, impossible, impatient,
imperfect
Before a root starting with m or p, in- becomes im-
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Suffix –ly
Before a root starting with r, in- becomes ir-
irregular, irrelevant, irresponsible
re- means again or back
redo, refresh, return, reappear, redecorate
sub- means under
submarine, subheading
auto- means self or own
autobiography, autograph, automatic
Revise: the suffix –ly begins with a consonant, so
usually it is added straight onto a root word.
completely, finally
basically, frantically, dramatically
rd
New: 3 exception (see year 3 for others):
If the root ends with –ic, then add –ally rather than
just –ly, (except in the word publicly.)
division, invasion, confusion, decision, collision,
television
Sometimes the root word is obvious, e.g.
poisonous.
Sometimes there is no obvious root word e.g.
tremendous.
poisonous, dangerous, mountainous, famous,
various
-our is changed to
-or before adding
tremendous, enormous, jealous
-ous
Keep the final e when using a soft g.
humorous, glamorous, vigorous
If there is a short i sound before the suffix -ous, it
is usually spelt with an i, but a few words have e.
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Words with ending –sion (hard sound –
e.g. television)
-cian is used if the root word ends in c or cs. (Note
courageous, outrageous
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Suffix –ous
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Words ending with –cian
how many of these words show professions.)
serious, obvious, curious
French in origin.
hideous, spontaneous, courteous
Revise: when the owner is singular, the
apostrophe is placed before the s.
Revise: when the owner is plural, the apostrophe
is placed after the s.
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Words with the k phoneme, spelt ch
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Words with the sh phoneme, but spelt ch
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Words with the hard g phoneme, spelt gue
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Other words spelt gue
New: some owners are considered as a collective
group, as if they were a single body. In this case,
the apostrophe goes before the s, as with singular
owners, e.g. children’s.
Singular proper nouns ending in an s use the ‘s
suffix, e.g. Cyprus’s
musician, electrician, magician, politician,
mathematician
scheme, chorus, chemist, echo, character
chef, chalet, machine, brochure
league, colleague, catalogue
tongue
antique, unique, clique
Continue to revise homophones from Year 3
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Words with the k phoneme, spelt que
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Revise possessive apostrophe for singular
and plural words.

Possessive apostrophe for irregular plural
words.
Sarah’s, Mr Black’s
squirrels’ tails;
girls’ toilet
children’s, men’s, women’s, firemen’s, policemen’s,
mice’s Cyprus’s, Chris’s, James’s
(Can also be written Chris’ or James’ – not in POS)
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Further homophones or near-homophones
accept/except, affect/effect, ball/bawl,
medal/meddle, scene/seen,
Spoken Language
Pupils should be taught to:
•listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers
•ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge
•use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary
•articulate answers and opinions, beginning to be able to justify their response; understand that arguments depend upon point of view
•give structured and appropriate descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes; express feelings appropriately
•maintain attention for longer periods of time, being able to participate actively in group conversations; maintain relevant topic during collaborative talk; respond to the
comments of others; raise questions in a group
•use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, imagining and exploring ideas; begin to pose a hypothesis
•speak audibly and fluently, with an increasing command of Standard English
•participate in discussions, presentations and performances; further develop skills in role play and improvisation; begin to understand the process of debate
•gain and maintain the interest of the listener, growing in the ability to monitor the listener’s response and begin to make adjustments
•consider different viewpoints; be able to listen to these and build on the contribution of others
•be aware that people use different kinds of speech in different circumstances; grow increasingly able to select and use appropriate registers
Writing Composition
Knowledge, skills and understanding
Supporting composition: routines and resources
Pupils should be taught to:
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Plan their writing by:
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discussing writing similar to that which they are planning to write in order to
understand and learn from its structure, vocabulary and grammar
discussing and recording ideas.
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Draft and write by:
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composing and rehearsing sentence orally (including dialogue), progressively
building a varied and rich vocabulary and an increasing range of sentence
structures
introduce the paragraph as a way to group related material; begin to
organise information around a theme
in narratives, develop understanding of ‘setting’, ‘character’ and ‘plot’ and
begin to use in own writing
in non-narrative writing, understand and use simple organisational device
[e.g. heading, sub-headings].
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Share the reading of a range of texts in the chosen genre to gain familiarity
with its features and structure.
Engage in interactive discussion of texts; book talk; reminder of previous
examples; cross curricular link texts.
Draw out high quality vocabulary from shared texts.
Build spoken language skills; speak in pairs and circles; verbal explanations
e.g. how I made my model; verbal instructions; reading writing aloud;
poetry.
Use recording equipment to capture children’s oral contributions.
Use a dictionary to check meaning of words during reading.
Model correct use of punctuation when writing sentences with children;
shared and guided writing routines.
Play Noisy Sentences and other sentence games; encourage children to hear
the full stops as you read a familiar passage aloud. (Read twice. Listen first
time. Pupils knock on the table when each sentence comes to an end.)
Enjoy mini whiteboard work as a regular routine, creating and improving
simple sentences; strengthen the noun; add an adjective; improve the verb;
drop in a subordinate clause; add a subordinate clause etc.
As a regular routine, model how to identify the main and subordinate
clause.
Play a spoken language game which requires pupils to change a sentence
from the past tense to the present and vice versa. Add actions.
Role-play giving commands e.g. lord / duchess / princess / mayor.
Work in groups with a leader /chairperson, developing different characters
within the group.
Provide visual reminders through working walls, friezes and posters.
Find and highlight direct speech. Use speech bubbles to indicate spoken
words. Model.
Make dictionaries and thesauruses available and model how to use them.
Use word walls and key words; word logs; magpie (share) words with others.
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Use guided writing regularly as an opportunity to feedback specific
information to children. Discuss next steps.
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Clarify the usage of a word within a sentence, particularly for those pupils
who are new to the English language e.g. a round shape / a round of cards /
singing a round / round and round
Text mark: find all the pronouns etc.
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Model the proof-reading process during shared and guided writing.
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Record examples on Talking Books or other IT devices.
Ask pupils to read work aloud to an audience. Involve pupils in evaluation.
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Pupils should be able to write down their ideas with a reasonable degree of
accuracy and with good sentence punctuation. Teachers should therefore be
consolidating pupils’ writing skills, their vocabulary, grasp of sentence
structure and knowledge of terminology.
Expect independent use of full stops and capital letters.
Provide and display sentence openers using various connectives.
Become familiar with the term word class; choose nouns or pronouns
appropriately for clarity e.g. Jenny bought a Mars bar.
During shared reading, point out that many words belong to more than one
word class, depending upon their usage in the text.
Identify adjectives in a text; words which tell you more about the noun;
collect and classify adjectives (e.g. shapes, sizes, colours, sounds etc);
consider the impact of the adjective during shared reading and writing.
Practical activity: show and talk about ‘Joanna’s coat’ or ‘Daniel’s pencil’ to
understand the meaning of possession, and to count the number of owners.
Contractions activity: use paper/card/ sticky notes to show uncontracted
Evaluate and edit by:
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assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing, and suggesting
improvements
suggesting changes to grammar and vocabulary, which improve writing,
including the accurate use of pronouns.
Proof-read for spelling and punctuation errors.
Read aloud their own writing, using appropriate intonation and volume so that the
meaning is clear.
Pupils should be taught to:
develop their understanding of the concepts of grammar, punctuation and
vocabulary (Appendix 2) by:
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using a wider range of conjunctions, including when, if, because, although
choosing nouns or pronouns for clarity
using conjunctions to express time and cause.
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Indicate grammatical features by:
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indicating possession by using the possessive apostrophe with both singular
and plural nouns (Year 4. In Year 3, revise singular nouns and teach plural to
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pupils who are ready.)
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using and punctuating direct speech.
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Use and understand the grammatical terminology in English Appendix 2 accurately
and appropriately when discussing their writing and reading.
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Use the present perfect form of verbs instead of the simple past [e.g. He has
gone out to play rather than He went out to play.
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and contracted words – kinaesthetic activity.
Learn to recognise and spell contractions: cannot, can’t; will not, won’t etc.
Introduce the words ‘omit; omission; possess; possession’ in readiness for
teaching apostrophes.
Practise and develop more confidence to use speech marks accurately to
show direct speech. Mention that they have another name which is inverted
commas. Find them in class texts or guided reading texts.
Notice and collect irregular verbs, when working with a text.
Play card-matching games with verbs in the present and past tense: come
came; go went; shake shook; sing sang; buy bought; teach taught etc; know
that tense refers to time.
Talk about commands e.g. when reading and writing instructions: these are
also called imperative verbs. Explain with practical activities.
Introduce an adverb which gives more information about the verb.
Model use of commas in lists, exclamation marks and question marks.
Introduce the word preposition to show the position of one thing in relation
to another; play games to practise e.g. put the red triangle in front of the
blue cube.
Extending Year 4
Use paragraphs as a way to organise ideas around a theme.
Pupils should be taught to:
develop their understanding of the concept of grammar, punctuation and
vocabulary (Appendix 2) by:


extending the range of sentences with more than one clause by using a
wider range of conjunctions, including when, if, because, although
using the present perfect form of verbs in contrast to the simple past tense
[e.g. He has gone out rather than He went out]
Model boxing-up of information into sections of similar material around a theme.
Identify key information.
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Recognise that sentences need verbs to make sense.
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Be able to identify the main clause and subordinate clause; begin to use
connectives to structure an argument: if; on the other hand.
Learn that strong, specific nouns and powerful verbs make good writing.
Provide scaffolds during planning, both during shared planning and independent
work.
Notice the various positions of the main clause within a sentence; e.g. ‘Although
it was cold, Jack took his coat off.’ – can be written: ‘Jack took his coat off,
although it was cold.’ (The main clause moves to the beginning of the sentence).
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Textmark; find the subordinate clause.
Vary sentence order and sentence length, and examine the effect on the reader.
 choosing nouns or pronouns for clarity and cohesion and to avoid repetition
 using conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions to express time and cause.
Indicate grammatical features by:



Use a comma to mark a pause within a complex sentence.
Model how to use two commas around extra information, e.g. Jess, the shorter
of the two, asked Peter for a ladder. Explore other ways to punctuate extra
information (a parenthesis), such as with a pair of brackets or dashes.

Revise the term pronoun during shared writing, to show how they help the
writer to avoid repetition or ambiguity, e.g. Josh loved sausages. He ate three
every day. His mother gave them to him.
Play the adverb game: do an action (e.g. sit on your chair / pick up a coat etc) in
the manner of the adverb.
Recognise adverbs when reading, particularly those ending with ‘ly’.
Model how to use a fronted adverbial as a regular routine in shared writing;
discuss the effect of changing its position in the sentence.
Make sentences with mini whiteboards. Provide children with a simple
sentence. Model how to add a comma and connective, followed by a
subordinate clause e.g. The dog came along the road – The Alsatian lurched
along the lane, although his owner was calling him.
Ask pupils to identify whether a phrase/sentence has one owner or more than
one owner, in order to be able to determine the position of the apostrophe e.g.
the tails belonging to the squirrels; the dummy belonging to the baby.
Identify and apply apostrophe for possession e.g. the baby’s dummy; the ladies’
hats; teach basic rules for singular/plural nouns first.
Compare this to the apostrophe for omission used by contractions e.g. won’t.
Revise the term possessive pronoun e.g. Jack’s football, Miss Wood’s ruler.
Develop confidence with contractions such as: you’re, should’ve, would’ve,
it’s/its.
Photograph and collect examples of misuse of punctuation in the real world.
using commas after fronted adverbials
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indicating possession by using the possessive apostrophe with both singular
and plural nouns. Know the grammatical difference between plural and
possessive –s
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using and punctuating direct speech.
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Use and understand the grammatical terminology in English Appendix 2 accurately
and appropriately when discussing their writing and reading.


Use the term inverted commas when referring to speech marks, and clarify their
use in direct speech; identify the difference between direct and reported
speech.
Highlight / textmark to identify reported or direct speech from class text or
pupil writing.
Model insertion of inverted commas as a regular routine.
Deliberately make errors for pupils to edit and correct.
Use Standard English forms for verb inflections instead of local spoken forms [e.g.
we were rather than we was].
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Identify and understand the term determiner [which specifies a noun as know or
unknown, e.g. the; a; an; this; those; my; your; some; every;].
Provide lines from well-known rhymes or stories or poems e.g. Mary had a little
lamb / Cats sleep anywhere etc. Find the subject and verb. Repeat several times
until children can easily identify the subject and verb.
Use drama and role-play to identify and practise use of formal and informal
registers.
Visit theatre productions to broaden experience, language structures and
vocabulary, and to enrich knowledge and understanding of playscripts;
Emphasise the importance of making the subject and verb agree, both when
speaking and writing, e.g. We were fishing; I did my homework; they were blue.
Discuss and identify formal and informal language.
Build dictionary skills to check the meaning of new words; become familiar with
using a thesaurus to expand vocabulary; keep a journal of words.
Help pupils to avoid misuse of ‘them’ e.g. I put them books on the shelf instead
of I put those books on the shelf.